Bus to CA, poetry from my book “Tar and Gravel”

29157_397937423370_2677846_nfrom tar and gravel

bus to CA

There’s something beautiful and comforting about grey vomit stains barely scrubbed from velveteen seat backs and

something about the dense air and useless frustrated wanderlust of the greyhound station and the greyhound itself, this universe of breakdowns

in Pierre North Dakota and Weed, CA that makes me calm. Patience. It makes my mind shut tight and arrange itself compulsively. checking

repeatedly for wallet, keys, ticket, the automatic functions of the reptile brain fully involved;

Making sure nothing is lost, nobody touches me, children don’t climb and I

in the meantime have killed the upper brain.

 

Feet automatically avoiding the sprawl of wild loud children with sticky fingers and dirty pink too-tight shirts where they sit on the floor at the entrance

to the terminal; thirteen slightly torn and stretched garbage bags full of towels, clothes, toys, no books but I can see the handle of

a cast-iron fry pan

clearly outlined in the plastic, spilling around the children is the detritus of people who don’t

 

realize that frying pans are available at thrift stores in duluth as well as southern california.

Bus to CA, poetry from my book "Tar and Gravel"

29157_397937423370_2677846_nfrom tar and gravel

bus to CA

There’s something beautiful and comforting about grey vomit stains barely scrubbed from velveteen seat backs and

something about the dense air and useless frustrated wanderlust of the greyhound station and the greyhound itself, this universe of breakdowns

in Pierre North Dakota and Weed, CA that makes me calm. Patience. It makes my mind shut tight and arrange itself compulsively. checking

repeatedly for wallet, keys, ticket, the automatic functions of the reptile brain fully involved;

Making sure nothing is lost, nobody touches me, children don’t climb and I

in the meantime have killed the upper brain.

 

Feet automatically avoiding the sprawl of wild loud children with sticky fingers and dirty pink too-tight shirts where they sit on the floor at the entrance

to the terminal; thirteen slightly torn and stretched garbage bags full of towels, clothes, toys, no books but I can see the handle of

a cast-iron fry pan

clearly outlined in the plastic, spilling around the children is the detritus of people who don’t

 

realize that frying pans are available at thrift stores in duluth as well as southern california.

print edition of poetry book!

tar and gravel51E8o9iuGgL._AA200_

The print edition of my poetry book is now available!

For those of you who prefer actual ink on paper.

The book of essays goes to print tomorrow, there’ll be a kindle edition of that one as well. Pick one up! Or get both, that’d be awesome too. Or share the link with people who like poetry, the kooky bastards.

I’m pretty excited about all this. I’d never have done it without prodding, but now that it’s done and published I feel good about it. I’ll post links to the second book tomorrow once it goes live, and probably put a few new paintings up later tonight too (I have one or two things almost finished) 

UPDATE: Print and kindle editions of the essay/art/tattoo book are here!

The third book in the series will be mostly images: that one won’t be out til nearer the end of the month. And I am planning a kickstarter this month, for the horror coloring book, I’ll update when both of those projects begin!

Originally Published on: Oct 4, 2013

tar and gravel, the book is out.

coverhttp://www.amazon.com/dp/B00F9UBNRU

Hope you guys like it.

three poems.

I’ve got a book coming out this week. The chapbooks are already sold out (I’m keeping a few for later) but it’ll be on kindle as well (very cheaply, because it’s poetry, and who needs poetry.) There’s about a hundred poems in it and the chapbook/for real version has illustrations (but the kindle does not). Several other of my poems are here online, if you like that kind of thing.

 

Here are three poems from that book.

shovels in the sun

outside the little taco stand at 13th street and juniper I met

this bum, this grifter

lying on his side by the beer vomit, he was fooling around with the drawstring on his

grey, thin sweatpants

I sat there waiting. They didn’t have a waiting area, no tables inside. no Loitering.

“I went to the sun.” he told me. “there is a lake there, but it ain’t a regular lake. it’s fire, all fire.”

I smoked. He kept on at me, “Once, I went there. You can’t stay long. It’s hot you know. all the fire. all fire…”

His face creased. His hands started rolling imaginary coils of paper, clacking dirty nails together.

My taco order came up. So I got the bag and sat back down. I had nowhere to be.

“if you get to go to the sun, watch out. they’ll try to trick you. I had to escape, they’re assholes there.

I want to warn you, but they’re listening, right now.”

He pointed at the sky.

“well, what can they do from there?” I had to know. “shoot fire at us?”

“they’ll come and get me, take me back there. I said too much already. shit.”

He stopped. His hands sat now still on the concrete next to the vomit and some bird shit.

“have a taco.” I handed him one.

he nodded but didn’t look at me again.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

(more…)

Rib panel.

She sat like a rock.

The full poem quoted in the piece:

Don’t stand by my grave and weep,

for I am not there.

I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I’m the diamond’s glint on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn’s rain.

Don’t stand by my grave and cry.

I am not there. I did not die.

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